We found the village of Mafulu very small and the people extremely shy. One or two men were about, and the women were at work in their gardens. We sent on some of our men to discover the best possible camping-place, a work of considerable difficulty, for there are no plateaux in the Owen Stanley range, and the contour of the ground, as I have already indicated, is terribly abrupt. In fact, when one has travelled for some weeks in these regions, a peculiar habit of walking is acquired, which is somewhat equivalent to a sailor’s sea-legs. This acquisition the traveller does not find out until he returns to low, flat ground, when he suddenly realises that he is stumbling at every step, and some practice is required to recover the ordinary method of locomotion, and he has to break himself of the habit of lifting his knees almost to his nose. About an hour’s march from the village the men discovered a fairly level spot, and by the time we came up they had, with axes and knives, begun to cut a clearing of the undergrowth to enable us to pitch our camp. We set up our own fly-tent and the natives’ two tents and built a large fire, for it was very cold and the boys were beginning to feel the climate of that high elevation. Indeed, during our whole stay at Mafulu we felt the stress of the climate severely. That first night was very chilly, and it was necessary to serve out blankets to the natives in order to enable them to withstand the cold. They slung their hammocks on sticks or trees, sometimes one above the other, and close to these they built large fires and kept them going during the night. The sky at night was clear and starlit, but the morning brought clouds, and mists enveloped the forest, often accompanied by heavy rain that made the place most depressing. The view was entirely shut out; everything was dripping; our clothes were very soon saturated, and the whole situation was most uncomfortable. The humidity of that region was proved by the fact that the under side of the leaves of various plants was covered with moss.